Sharlto Copley loved 'The A-Team' as a kid, and now gets to play Murdock

RONALDO SCHEMIDT Sharlto Copley, once a TV producer in South Africa, landed the role of Murdock in the feature film version of "The A-Team" after creating an audition video in a Texas hotel room.

Sharlto Copley is an unlikely action-adventure star, a former TV producer from South Africa who made his big-screen debut at age 35, leading the cast in "District 9."

The Oscar-nominated sci-fi hit features Copley as a hapless bureaucrat named Wikus who undergoes an alien transformation and turns against his employers with heavy weaponry.

He and his friend, Neill Blomkamp, shot a short version of the movie in 2005 and, at that point, Copley was working mainly behind the camera. When Peter Jackson helped them get funding to shoot a feature film, Blomkamp asked Copley to play the main character.

While he was on tour promoting the picture, Copley got word that the producers of "The A-Team" movie were considering him for the role of the wisecracking Murdock. On the spot in Austin, Texas, he shot a hotel room audition video titled, "Things That Could Happen to Murdock in a Hotel Room." His girlfriend held the camera while he demonstrated his ability to deliver comedic riffs and speak with different accents, inspired by the original performer, Dwight Schultz.

Edited on a laptop, that video earned him an invitation to join the "Team." The ensemble cast includes Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Jessica Biel and fighter-turned-actor Quinton "Rampage" Jackson in the Mr. T role.

We spoke with Copley on the phone about Murdock, Wikus and the greatness of the '80s.

Q. From what I've been reading, you're a big fan of the original series.

A. Yes. You have read correctly.

Q. I didn't realize that "A-Team" was so big internationally.

A. It was a huge show in South Africa. It was so huge that when I started an "A-Team" gang in my class, another group of kids started their own "A-Team" gang. They copied my idea, so we actually went into the field to fight to determine who would be the "A-Team" and, thankfully, we won.
Q. As someone who has a nostalgic attachment to the show, was there any concern about doing a remake and getting it right, staying true to the roots, but also saying something new?

A. Very much so, but in this new job, because I come from a filmmaking background, I realized I would have to drop my filmmaking hat and really just focus on being an actor and dealing with my character.

Q. I saw in one article that Dwight Schultz watched your performance, and it actually brought him to tears. Is that true?

A. Yeah.
Q. You made him cry?

A. I love the way that people take that and say, "Sharlto makes Dwight cry." It was meant to be one of the moving moments of my life, and it turned into a headline on a story. It's true that he had tears welling up in his eyes, and he turned to me after watching it and gave me a hug.
Q. Did you cry when you saw him cry?

A. I got teary. Now your headline is going to be, "Sharlton crying over Murdock."

Q. Do we have any footage of the crying and hugging that could go on the DVD?

A. Definitely no. It was just a moment for us in the trailer.

Q. The series itself has this enduring appeal. What do you think separates it from other TV action shows?

A. For me, the characters were the main thing. As the marketplace grew more competitive, it became about high-concept ideas and plot twists, and throw a bunch of people on an island rather than focusing on the characters. This is an homage to those movies that we grew up with that had strong characters, like "Beverly Hills Cop," "Die Hard," "Lethal Weapon."

Q. With "District 9," I was so excited to see it get an Oscar nomination, but it was disheartening that your performance was not recognized. The transformation reminded me of "The Fly" with Jeff Goldblum, who also was not nominated. Was the film shot in sequence or was it something where you had to be the comical version of the character and then, the next shot, be the more dramatic version of the character?

A. We shot out of sequence and I approached it two ways. I had a very free artistic space that I would go into, which really involves not thinking at all and just flowing with the character. In preparation, I actually built a graph for every major scene of the film. I basically used a mathematical system. I used his anger, his general intensity and his sickness level -- because he gets sick and then gets stronger as his body turns into an alien, and I gave everything a numeric value so I'd be like, "This is as angry as he gets. This is a 10." In every scene in relation to that, I was able to build a graph: "This is a 3 or a 7 or an 8." I needed a frame of reference, so I could just pull it up numerically.

Q. Is there a status update on a prequel or sequel?

A. Neill went straight into another movie. I went straight into "A-Team." Neill hasn't had any time to mention in any detail what he wants to do other than, literally, when the film came out, we had discussed that we would very much like to go back to the world of "District 9."